This moment quantity in "The americans" trilogy bargains with the the most important interval of yank background from the Revolution to the Civil struggle. right here we meet the folks who formed, and have been formed via, the yank experience—the flexible New Englanders, the Transients and the Boosters. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize.

Tavern owners would have to put stamps on bottles of alcohol and would have to pay taxes on the purchase of playing cards and dice. Merchants would have to use stamped and taxed paper for most business transactions. These people would have to charge their customers higher prices to make up for paying the tax. Dice were among the items that would be taxed as a result of the Stamp Act. Reproduced by permission of Field Mark Publications. Photograph by Robert Huffman. Things to remember while reading an excerpt from the Stamp Act: • Few people in England expected the anger that greeted the passage of the Stamp Act.

But Parliament did not wish to appear weak in the face of American protests, and Great Britain still needed money. Parliament followed up the Stamp Act with one act after another, including the Declaratory Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Intolerable Acts. The first acts of Parliament were either taxes on the colonies or declarations of Parliament’s right to tax them. As each act of Parliament was passed, Americans grew angrier. At first, only a few men, such as Boston political leader Samuel Adams (1722–1803), urged an open break with Great Britain.

Writs of assistance were documents that allowed British customs officials to enter and search any warehouse British Actions, Colonial Reactions: The Townshend Revenue Act 27 or private home at any time to look for smuggled goods. The customs officials could order colonial officials to assist them in the searches. Such writs had been legal since 1755 but were seldom used. The Townshend Revenue Act promised to make the unpopular searches common, in violation of the deeply held belief that a man’s home was his castle.